Number of stories: 744
Húsavík: Message in a bottle
by Gabriele Schneider - Jun 26, 2010
It was on Sunday, July 4th in the year 2006 when my father and I came to Húsavík. It was my father’s first stay in Iceland. The weather was fine, and it was too early to check in at the guesthouse. So we decided to take a little walk at the beach.
With his foot my dad kicked an empty whiskey-bottle that was lying in the sand, and he shouted out laughing: „Look, we found a message in a bottle!” I thought he was kidding, but then I saw, that there really was a rolled piece of paper in this bottle.
I took out the note, and really: We held the first message in a bottle in our life in our hands!
The message was the following:
„Nafn mitt er Árni, og ég er á heima Siglufirði, Íslandi.
Símanúmer hjá mér er (…).
Það er 1 júni 2006 í dag.
Vinsamlegast hafðu samband við mig, og segðu mér hvar flöskuskeytið nam land.“
I immediately translated the text for my father:
„My name is Árni, and I live at Siglufjörður, Iceland.
My phone number is (…).
Today it is June 1st in teh year 2006.
Please contact me and tell me, where the bottle came ashore.“
A real message in a bottle - unbelievable!
Who could be the sender? A little boy? Drunken youngsters?
There was only one possibility to find it out: to get in contact with the „author“.
First and foremost I tried to get an answer to the exciting question: How far away is Siglufjörður from Húsavík? Maybe I'll even deal with the flow conditions sometime, just to find out the exact path of this bottle. After all, the message in a bottle was no longer on its way than three and a half days. A quite quick ride, I think.
OK, I did not suppose that the sender of the message was sitting alone and almost starved on a deserted island, so I did not have to hurry. However, I immediately bought a postcard and wrote – half in Icelandic, half in English – when and where I found the message in a bottle, who I was and I also added my address and phone number. There was only a slight hope, that the “shipwrecked” would write or give me a call.
Three months later, on September 21st in 2006, around noon my telephone was ringing. I picked up the phone, and a man said, he was a friend of the bottle-mailer. He just called on behalf of Árni, as the young man spoke no English, and they could not know, if I understood Icelandic.
Now I heard that the sender was 23 years old and was slightly handicapped. Árni also came to the phone and spoke to me.
In all he had sent three bottles on a trip, but only mine had been found so far. The two men called me while being at the awards ceremony of the message in a bottle contest. Árni`s friend was, at that time, a Member of Parliament, shortly afterwards he became an Icelandic Minister. Árni, so he told me, often would give him assist.
The day after the conversation I wrote a letter to Árni, added photos from me and my family.
More than one year later, it was in December 2007, I got a long letter from Árni, wrote by his mother. He had also added a photo, and he told me much about his family, his daily life, about his work for the municipality. I was so happy about the letter, and I think, it was the most beautiful Christmas gift I ever could imagine.
In the meantime, the contact unfortunately ended, I also moved several times. But as I write these lines, I start to recognize how beautiful it would be, to write Árni a next letter, or maybe to visit him at Siglufjörður, when I am in Iceland in August.
(For all those who want to read the story in German, please have a look at www.Hausbucht.blogspot.com)
With his foot my dad kicked an empty whiskey-bottle that was lying in the sand, and he shouted out laughing: „Look, we found a message in a bottle!” I thought he was kidding, but then I saw, that there really was a rolled piece of paper in this bottle.
I took out the note, and really: We held the first message in a bottle in our life in our hands!
The message was the following:
„Nafn mitt er Árni, og ég er á heima Siglufirði, Íslandi.
Símanúmer hjá mér er (…).
Það er 1 júni 2006 í dag.
Vinsamlegast hafðu samband við mig, og segðu mér hvar flöskuskeytið nam land.“
I immediately translated the text for my father:
„My name is Árni, and I live at Siglufjörður, Iceland.
My phone number is (…).
Today it is June 1st in teh year 2006.
Please contact me and tell me, where the bottle came ashore.“
A real message in a bottle - unbelievable!
Who could be the sender? A little boy? Drunken youngsters?
There was only one possibility to find it out: to get in contact with the „author“.
First and foremost I tried to get an answer to the exciting question: How far away is Siglufjörður from Húsavík? Maybe I'll even deal with the flow conditions sometime, just to find out the exact path of this bottle. After all, the message in a bottle was no longer on its way than three and a half days. A quite quick ride, I think.
OK, I did not suppose that the sender of the message was sitting alone and almost starved on a deserted island, so I did not have to hurry. However, I immediately bought a postcard and wrote – half in Icelandic, half in English – when and where I found the message in a bottle, who I was and I also added my address and phone number. There was only a slight hope, that the “shipwrecked” would write or give me a call.
Three months later, on September 21st in 2006, around noon my telephone was ringing. I picked up the phone, and a man said, he was a friend of the bottle-mailer. He just called on behalf of Árni, as the young man spoke no English, and they could not know, if I understood Icelandic.
Now I heard that the sender was 23 years old and was slightly handicapped. Árni also came to the phone and spoke to me.
In all he had sent three bottles on a trip, but only mine had been found so far. The two men called me while being at the awards ceremony of the message in a bottle contest. Árni`s friend was, at that time, a Member of Parliament, shortly afterwards he became an Icelandic Minister. Árni, so he told me, often would give him assist.
The day after the conversation I wrote a letter to Árni, added photos from me and my family.
More than one year later, it was in December 2007, I got a long letter from Árni, wrote by his mother. He had also added a photo, and he told me much about his family, his daily life, about his work for the municipality. I was so happy about the letter, and I think, it was the most beautiful Christmas gift I ever could imagine.
In the meantime, the contact unfortunately ended, I also moved several times. But as I write these lines, I start to recognize how beautiful it would be, to write Árni a next letter, or maybe to visit him at Siglufjörður, when I am in Iceland in August.
(For all those who want to read the story in German, please have a look at www.Hausbucht.blogspot.com)
